Have you ever wondered how few countries like China, South Korea are successful even without relying on English language, and why in India we focus more on learning English:
Snippets:
- I have been into this debate from a very long time. And I found this great article written by V Santha Kumar, professor at Azim Premji University, Bangalore.
- My debate is not that english is a foreign language. It's because due to lack of strong transactional english our children are weak in concept formation/comprehension.
- Teaching through child’s mother tongue/home language is internationally recognised as the most appropriate way of working with children particularly in the early years of concept formation, which will, in turn, helps strong academic foundation.
Below are few highlights from the original article. This article speaks from economic/developmental perspective. You might have an other angle of debate.
- If a country’s industry and economy have grown organically and in a wholesome manner, then there is no need to study a foreign language by the majority. This kind of industrial and economic development would absorb all kinds of people with different levels of education.
- There could be a number of huge factories as in China or Vietnam or Indonesia (and other such countries) and each may employ 40000-50000 people wherein the transaction is in local language. The communication between managers and workers, and that between most tiers of managers would be in local language.
- Higher demand for English in India as an outcome of the failure of its economic development.
- Lower middle-class parents cannot afford better quality private schools and most government schools do not use English as the medium of instruction. Hence they use poorer quality private schools since they want their kids to study English.
- It is well known that British colonialists did not have any intention to provide education to the majority when they introduced formal education in English in India. The limited purpose was to create a set of `mediators’ (lower level officials) between colonial administrators and the people of India.
Above were few snippets from the original online article. To read from source click below.
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